GALVESTON, Texas — Mike Evans was young, maybe third or fourth grade, and in no real position yet to help anyone.
It was Christmas, it was cold, and there was a homeless man in Kempner Park, not far from where he lived. So Evans made a “goodie bag” for him.
“I’d take him some socks, gloves, a sandwich, chips,” said the Bucs receiver, now 28 and in his eighth NFL season. “I don’t know. I always got satisfaction out of it. I still do. Now that I’m in the position I’m in, I can help more and more.”
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Evans grew up here, blocks from the Gulf of Mexico, unsure if he’d ever leave the state of Texas. He has found success on the far shore of the same waters, reaching two personal dreams this year in Tampa as the Bucs won a Super Bowl and he was named the team’s Man of the Year for his off-field work.
The mayor of Galveston proclaimed Mike Evans Day in March with a parade along the city’s seawall, a proud son returning home riding in a fire truck with young fans trailing, some wearing his red No. 13 Bucs jersey.
“This is one of the best honors I will ever receive, the people that I care about, the city that I love, honoring me like this,” said Evans that day, wearing a purple-and-gold Ball High School letter jacket, a pendant with a photo of him as a baby with his father hanging from his neck as he held an oversized key to the city. “This means the world to me, and this is definitely one of the best accomplishments I’ve had in my lifetime.”
.@Buccaneers WR @MikeEvans13_ throws footballs to fans during the parade being held in his honor by his hometown of Galveston. A great moment for Mike and his family. pic.twitter.com/ArSSQTVULj
— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) March 27, 2021
Evans can remember attending a similar parade as a teenager honoring Galveston’s Casey Hampton, a defensive tackle who won Super Bowls with the Steelers in 2006 and 2009. To witness one celebrating his own success, which might inspire someone else to a joyous homecoming a decade or more from now, was surreal for him.
“Galveston, the city, it definitely helped me become the man I am today. I love it so much,” he said. “I love going back. A lot of my family is still there, a lot of my friends, people that supported me since I was a child. It’s always great to be back. They call me ‘Mikey Evans’ down there. To hear ‘I’m trying to be the next Mikey Evans,’ that’s a dream come true. I don’t take it for granted, and I’m going to keep trying to be the best role model and set the best example I can for the youth back in my city, and all the kids that follow me around the world.”
The story of Galveston is, like Evans’ own story, one of resilience, of pushing through adversity and unspeakable tragedy. The city is just now starting to recover from the damage caused by Hurricane Nicholas, which flooded roads and caused hundreds of thousands to lose power this week.
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There is a long history of such destruction. The city’s seawall was constructed more than a century ago after a massive hurricane — they didn’t have names then — slammed into the barrier island in 1900, claiming an estimated 7,500 lives in the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. A fifth of the city’s population died that day, including 90 children in one orphanage.
Galveston had been a thriving port city but was never the same again. Before the hurricane, it was the fourth-largest city in Texas; now it ranks 69th in population. Kempner Park is named for I.H. Kempner, who owned a successful sugar company in town in 1900 and helped lobby and pay for the original 17-foot-tall, three-mile-long seawall that would protect the city from future storms. The wall brought safety, but it also accelerated the erosion and even disappearance of local beaches, taking away some of the city’s appeal as a weekend destination for people in Houston and other inland cities.
A barrier island in the Gulf exists in constant fear of the next major storm, and Galveston residents all have a survival story, whether it’s Hurricane Carla in 1961 or Alicia in 1983. Evans was a high school sophomore in 2008 when Hurricane Ike hit Galveston directly, forcing evacuations and sending tens of thousands of families into shelters. In all, the storm resulted in $30 billion in damage.
An essay written that year in Texas Monthly, titled “My Frail Island,” spoke of the sad inevitability of and homes slowly being washed away by time. The closing words are haunting: “We all know in our hearts the sea will win in the end.”
Evans endured much himself on the island. His mother, Heather, had him when she was 14 years old; his sister Kia was born a year later. Mickey Evans was a loving father but abusive to Mike’s mother. He was sent to jail for three years for a felony assault on another woman when Evans was 5, and he was sent back for 30 days for hitting Heather soon after he returned.
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Evans lost his father when he was 9 after Heather’s brother Sam, tired of his sister’s abuse, shot and stabbed Mickey Evans, killing him in a drunken rage. Evans told the story in an E:60 special in 2016, sharing that he and Kia were woken up by police and told that “there’s a dead black guy in the street.” Sam Kilgore would be convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 38 years in prison. Four years later, he was found guilty of capital murder in the killing of his cellmate, which resulted in a life sentence.
After his father’s death, Evans was blessed to have other father figures emerge in his life, and Terry Petteway thinks of him like a son. Petteway spent 24 years in Galveston as a constable — an elected peace officer by Texas law, one per precinct — and was Evans’ first football coach.
He remembers Evans playing defensive end early in his youth football days and how he liked to rush the quarterback from the inside, even though he was coached again and again to take an outside route to the pocket.
“If you wanted the best out of him, tell him what he can’t do,” Petteway said. “He’s just going to elevate himself to whatever. I’ve told him (today), ‘You can’t possibly go for another 1,000 yards. There’s too many people, they’re just going to spread the ball around.’ I’m not saying it because he can’t do it. I just want to fire him up.”
This picture of Terran Petteway and Mike Evans is sick pic.twitter.com/d0xilGDHbb
— G (@G_Man_3) March 10, 2014
Petteway had three sons play college basketball, and his youngest, Terran, was a basketball teammate of Evans at Galveston’s Ball High School. He went on to play at Nebraska and still plays professionally in Greece. He and Evans have remained close friends. The elder Petteway, whose wife, Joetta passed away in 2015, is now raising two of his grandsons and said Evans spent a day with them this summer, like a favorite uncle.
“My sons, they’re like his brothers, and he is a part of my family,” said Petteway, who came out of retirement after his wife’s death and now works as chief deputy for the precinct. “Mike comes to the house, sits with us playing video games. He took the boys out, is working with them, teaching them routes. They probably spent three hours out there, then he took them out to eat. That’s what he does.”
It doesn’t always work out this well, as Petteway knows. Early in his constable days, he came to know one young man, constantly in and out of the court system, fighting with his girlfriend, the same cycle continuing.
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“I’d say ‘Why do you keep doing this shit?’ and I stayed on him, helped him get a couple of jobs,” he recalled. “He was doing community service, and I saw so much in this kid, I had him come into my office, had my secretary work with him, show him how to work on the computer.”
One day, the kid proudly brought a baby to the office — “cute little kid, funny looking, looked like Mr. Magoo, one eye open, the other closed.” Years passed, and Petteway saw him several times on the sidelines at youth football practice, eventually finding out he was now coaching that young man’s son: “That little Mr. Magoo was Mike.”
Petteway pulls up a picture on his phone, remembering the mid-1990s, when gang violence was a major problem in Galveston. He got the crazy idea to bring Bloods and Crips together to make a football team, a place where hated rivals would put away their guns and practice, even playing together against similar teams from cities like Houston and Beaumont.
“It was absolutely insane that I would do that,” he says in retrospect, pointing out Mickey Evans wearing No. 43 in the top row of a team photo. “That’s how much I kept this guy under my wing. Tell Mike you’ve seen this picture, and watch. I guarantee you’ll see a glow out of him. His dad was a good athlete. The crazy thing, and what is fate, is I had a relationship with his daddy way before he was born.”
Petteway isn’t surprised that Evans is so generous with his time, with donating as he can to others. “For too much of his life, he had nothing to share,” he said. Watching the parade this spring, seeing him recognized and honored in his hometown, was more special for those who have known him since his humble childhood.
“His heart is huge,” Petteway said. “I’m just really proud of the way he has handled success. None of these things have changed him. He’s a remarkable guy.”
(Courtesy of Jerald Temple)Giving back is a central part of Evans now, and the Mike Evans Family Foundation, launched in 2017 by Mike and his wife, Ashli, has dual missions, both personal to Evans: helping families that have been impacted by domestic violence and helping students get to college with scholarships.
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Beyond that, there have been constant stories of direct kindness, even to strangers. In his rookie year with the Bucs in 2014, Evans visited with the brother of Drew Newsome, a fan who was battling a rare cancer. Evans promised he would try to score a touchdown for Drew that Sunday and did, kneeling in prayer for him in the end zone. Two days later, Newsome lost his battle and was buried wearing the autographed jersey that Evans gave him. The team later gave the family the ball that Evans caught, and he has remained friends with the family in the years since.
Evans signed an $82 million contract extension with the Bucs in 2018, giving him the means to help more people. He donated $11,000 to the family of a shooting victim killed by police after a jury awarded them only $4 in a civil suit. An avid gamer, Evans took part in a charity video-game event to raise money for the victims of a shooting in Jacksonville during a Madden NFL qualifying tournament. The foundation has an annual golf tournament and bowling event to help raise additional donations for their scholarship programs.
Former Aggie standout Mike Evans and his wife Ashli presented a $40,000 check to Texas A&M to establish two need-based scholarships for students from his hometown of Galveston, Texas.
Thanks and Gig 'em Mike! 👍 pic.twitter.com/wy6bcjDDzp
— Texas A&M Foundation (@TXAMFoundation) May 21, 2019
He does charity work in his new home of Tampa Bay, but he’s still active in Galveston, donating $50,000 last year at the outset of COVID-19 to the local United Way (with a matching donation in Tampa) and another $50,000 back in March when a winter storm left millions without power for days in sub-freezing temperatures.
He’s held annual summer football camps in Galveston, and not only were they free for local kids, but Evans insisted on paying for school employees who worked the camp.
“We have standard fees, but I can waive those fees. I said ‘That’s Mike Evans. That’s our favorite son. He’s giving back to people,'” said Jerry Gibson, Galveston’s superintendent of schools. “I got him on the phone, he’s working out, lifting weights. I said ‘Mike, you don’t have to pay for anything. I’ve got it. The district can cover it.’ He said that’s not acceptable. ‘No, sir. I appreciate that. That means a lot.’ He will still pay for the custodial and the security to make sure he knew they were going to get paid. That spoke to me.”
Thank you to everyone who made the 2021 Mike Evans Youth Football Camp possible! Close to 150 kids attended the free camp on Saturday, June 26. A huge thanks to @MikeEvans13_, the coaches, volunteers and our generous community partners. #mikeevans #youthfootball #GoBucs pic.twitter.com/5oLGkE2aFs
— Mike Evans Family Foundation (@MikeEvansFamil1) June 28, 2021
Evans was one of those kids once, attending free camps that Hampton would host during his playing days.
“Those camps were really fun,” Evans said. “We used to always go, and he was a beacon of hope to show that somebody from that small town could actually make it, to become a professional athlete. I always said if I was ever to make it professional in any sport I’d do something similar. It’s been great that I’ve been able to do that, and hopefully the kids that come to my camp can get a great experience from it and hopefully lead them down the right path.”
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Galveston mayor Craig Brown, who has followed Evans since his high school days, said while Evans calls Tampa home now, he “is and will always be considered a Galvestonian,” and his commitment to helping his community is commendable.
Hampton, now retired inland near Houston, was at Evans’ parade in March, happy to see another generation of children in his hometown with someone to show them they can overcome the odds and do great things.
“That’s just part of our upbringing: It’s Galveston against everybody,” Hampton said. “Galveston doesn’t have a whole lot. We know we don’t have a lot of resources down there, so anybody who’s able to make it, they always remember Galveston. To have a guy like that in the NFL from such a small town, a lot of people look up to him. That’s a big responsibility, and I think he’s taking it by the horns and accepting that challenge, being a great role model to the kids.”
“The word is ambassador. Mike Evans really relates what we have in Galveston and we stand for here,” Brown said. “We greatly appreciate Mike and all he does for everybody here. You see his camps as his impact on the young children here on the island, but the main part of giving back is not only the funding and support, but setting a role model they can look up to.”
Evans’ camps are open to anyone, and his basketball coach at Ball, Jerald Temple, said that every year he sees children taking part who don’t know the sport but just want to experience a brush with stardom.
“There’s people out here who don’t even play football, are not going to play football in the future, that come to his camps just to be a part of it,” he said. “We have several girls out there. Everybody has a good time and feels comfortable around him.”
Like any current Buccaneers player, Evans is in the shadow of quarterback Tom Brady nationally, but in Tampa, he’s beloved. A survey by The Athletic this summer asked fans their favorite current player, and Evans took second to Brady — finishing 1.7 percent behind the seven-time Super Bowl champ.
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He played his first six seasons in Tampa without making the playoffs, but still re-signed on a long-term extension. Veteran Bucs like Evans and linebacker Lavonte David, who had been through the most to get to a championship, have earned a special loyalty from long-suffering fans.
Evans, huge and athletic at 6-5 and 225 pounds, is the first receiver in NFL history to open his career with seven straight 1,000-yard seasons, and in those seven years he has reset all the Bucs’ receiving records. No player in Tampa Bay history had caught more than 11 touchdowns in a season before Evans, but he’s now done it three times, including 13 this past season. Tampa Bay’s four Hall of Famers are all from the defensive side of the ball, so it’s fair to say he is already the best offensive player in the franchise’s 45-year history.
Evans doesn’t have to reach back to his childhood to know the joy of a fan getting to meet his favorite player. He’s a huge NBA fan and especially a LeBron James fan, and in the Bucs’ 2019 win over the Rams in L.A., he celebrated a touchdown catch by doing James’ signature celebration. James acknowledged him with a tweet saying “keep going lil bro.”
That was a thrill for Evans, and it was only online. In January 2020, he and Ashli went to a Lakers-Rockets game in Houston. Evans had nice seats in the second row courtside, and as James was preparing to take an inbounds pass, he turned around and recognized Evans, reaching over to shake his hand.
@KingJames greeting #NBA fans pic.twitter.com/qgnhGUvyYp
— Jerry Coleman (@sportswcoleman) January 19, 2020
“Those moments like that are the biggest bonus of doing what we do,” Evans said. “He doesn’t have to do that, but he just goes out of his way to do that. I’m a huge fan of him. I think he’s the best athlete ever. For him to just acknowledge me, it means the world. It shows he’s a real person. He’s not a damn robot. He’s a normal person like everyone else.”
As Evans grew up, Galveston was his world. His first adventures beyond its borders came from basketball at Ball, Galveston’s only public high school. When Evans was playing, the Tors were ranked No. 1 in the state and their rivalry game against La Marque in 2011 was played an hour away at the University of Houston’s basketball arena. A Houston-Tulane game that afternoon drew 5,100 fans, but Ball’s game that night sold out the building with 8,000 fans buying $10 tickets.
Ask people in Galveston, and they’ll tell you they knew Evans would be a star. But most expected that would be in basketball, where Evans could jump out of the gym and score from anywhere. Even as he took up football and found success there, it was unclear where his future would be. Temple had lined up a high school game in Austin so Texas coach Rick Barnes could see him in person, a scholarship at the ready, but just days before that game, Evans accepted a football scholarship to Texas A&M.
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Football is where Evans found his greatest success, in college and now with the Bucs.
In his first draft as Bucs general manager, Jason Licht passed on Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel to take Evans seventh in the first round, finding one of the first cornerstones of an eventual championship team.
When the Bucs won the Super Bowl in February, Evans had not only his family there to share in the moment, but Petteway and Temple as well. He celebrated on the field with Ashli and his daughters, Mackenzie and Ariah; the couple also has a son Amari, who will turn 2 in December.
“It couldn’t happen to a better guy. Still so grounded,” Petteway said. “A lot of guys, once they achieve things in life, they are so arrogant they don’t want anybody around them. This guy walks right in the middle of everybody.”
On the first day of training camp, with fans carefully isolated from players as part of new COVID-19 restrictions, Evans caught a sideline pass that carried him over to the short fence separating the field from the stands. He hopped over the fence and leaned into the crowd, just wanting a split-second of interaction with his fans.
When people ask why Bucs fans love @MikeEvans13_ so much. This is why! #WeBackkkkk pic.twitter.com/cchoAppHvT
— Pat $tacks (@Pb2paid) July 25, 2021
Football is Evans’ livelihood and passion now, but it was basketball that first gave him confidence, showed him his potential and a real path to a better life.
“When I was young, I thought I’d never be able to leave the state of Texas,” Evans said. “I don’t know why I thought that, but I was so subdued to that area. I was always in that area, never really left the Houston area. Then basketball got me all around America, and in high school, I even left the country. I was like, ‘Sports can take you a long way.'”
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In December, as Ball High’s basketball season gets going, Evans is giving the Tors a road trip to remember. He’s paying for the team to come to Tampa for a weekend, playing games against Jesuit and Wharton high schools, then attending the Buccaneers-Bills game as Evans’ guests.
“I’m happy to be able to do this. I wish I would have been able to do it sooner,” Evans said. “They get to come, and hopefully it’s a life-changing experience for them.”
(Top illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: Getty; Julio Aguilar, Jacob Kupferman, Wesley Hitt)
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